Any Help For Real Estate Websites?

I read on Matt Cutts blog that Vanessa Fox has decided to leave Google. That doesn’t happen too often.

She is going to Zillow. I haven’t heard of Zillow before so I asked my two clients who are agents what they know about them. They both said the same thing that their listings were inaccurate. I don’t know if Vanessa can help with this problem, but it looks like they are committed to making this site work.

I have been thinking some site like this will come along and take over because when I first started working for Mark he introduced me to his boss who owned the agency ERA Showcase Homes.

That’s where I learned about the MLS (multi listing service). From what I could find most web designers don’t like it very much because it a mixed bag of systems that don’t work very well together. There is a plugin for the open source program Open Realty that works for some systems, but I found the system here in Pittsburgh to be overly complicated and passed on the job.

The way the MLS system works is that the realty companies and agents give them the data on their listings and the MLS sells it back to them and makes them follow very strict regulations.

I remember thinking at the time “That’s not how the Internet works, someone is going to do this better. It will easier to use and will be free.”

[…] I met with a Realtor about his site and we got to talking about the MLS. I have written before how I don’t like the MLS. You give them your listings and they sell them back to you. Not only that they make it […]